Gruber gets poisoned
by yamifannetje
Summary: Gruber gets poisoned in the Café.


**I don't own any of the characters**

It was a warm day at the Café. Everyone who had nothing else to do seemed to be there, looking for a fresh drink. René, Edith, Mimi en Yvette were the only ones not drinking for they were the only people working at the moment.

"René, what should be done with this?"

Yvette pointed at a glass of wine that was still on the counter. It had been poisoned to "calm down" the Germans if they gave the smallest impression they would try something. But apparently the heat had done that for them.

Lieutenant Gruber was playing the piano again which stopped many customers from flying the café in exchange for the terrible heat outside in fear of Edith singing. This time however, Gruber wasn't paying the least attention to him, René noticed occasionaly. It took several songs before the German did as much as look up over the piano into the general direction of the bar and René.

After another two songs Gruber stopped playing and announced it was time for another drink. There sounded noices of agreement and René almost hurried to them. On his way to do so, he nearly collided with Yvette.

The girl looked almost surprised at her patron. She knew he always tried to stay away from Gruber as far as possible.

"What's with him?" she asked Edith, who passed her.

"Probably the heat." Edith said.

"Maybe he finally fell for Gruber." Mimi stated, her voice deadly serious. Yvette looked down at her and she looked up with her great eyes af if she had just stated the most spectacular war news.

"He wouldn't!" Edith said fiercely.

"He shoudn't." Yvette said silently. Nobody saw the tears in her eyes, which were staring intently at the glass with poisoned wine.

René was talking to the group Germans that was gatherend around the piano. Gruber was answering him in his seductive voice: "I will come to get it, myself, René. You have your hands full enough as it is."

René didn't realy know how to react. He knew the lieutenant would do anything to get near to him but since he was anywhere but after the counter at the moment, he didn't see why the Lieutenant wouldn't let himself be served properly, saving himself the burden.

René gestured to Yvette to ready a big glass of wine and went on to the nearest table. Yvette did so without delay and placed the glass on the counter and at the same time, she took the poisoned wine with her other hand.

"Yvette, could you help a moment?" Mimi called from the little chamber.

"It isn't Michelle, is it?" Yvette asked, watching René, who was just walking outside to the terras.

"No, I need some help with the barrels. If it was only Michelle. She could replace herself." Mimi added.

"I'll be right there." Yvette left the glasses on the counter and followed Mimi to the back.

At the moment Gruber was walking up to the counter, his eyes looking for René. When René reentered and noticed his gaze he smiled uncomfortably but Gruber only asked for the wine. Relieved, René responded: "It's on the counter, Lieutenant..." René's voice trailed off while he watched Gruber taking one of the glasses which were behind him. They looked both identical because the poison in one of them was colorless. René hoped it wasn't tasteless or without smell either. Or maybe he did.

He watched Gruber while he lifted the glass in the air at him and brought it to his mouth, listening to what one of the other officers said to him. Gruber gestured at the other glass while drinking from his own. The other officer took the glass and turned back at Gruber but his first words got stuck in his mouth.

Gruber started to sway on his legs and the joy on his face was replaced by confusion, then by fear and finally pain before he fell.

Edith, who was nearest, shrieked. René ran to Gruber's side. As patron of the Café, he was supposed to act properly but he didn't know what to do.

"What happened?"

The Colonel came forward, pushing Edith out of the way. He looked at René, who was sitting on his knees next to the Lieutenant.

"What happened?" he asked again.

René shook his head. "I don't know, colonel. I swear, I can't tell you what is happening here."

"He seemed completely well ever since he came in here. He did have a good lot of wine ever since, though, but he has got worse." said Helga Geerhart.

"Gruber. Gruber, no games, now, Lieutenant, stand up. Now."

"Colonel." Bertolli said in his Italian-touched accent. "That's very unfriendly the way you act."

"I can act way unfriendlier, Bertorelli."

The Italian said no more.

Gruber didn't move. He was completely still.

"Let me handle this. "Helga said. "René, cold water and a cloth. Now."

"Of course. Yvette."

The girl hurried away to get the asked things.

Edith turned to René. "Is that convenient. I mean, he's a German officer. He's the enemy."

The Colonel and a pair of the other offciers who were standing around, overheard these words. René noticed and answered accordingly: "You stupid woman!" then he added in a whisper to Edith: "We can't stand by and do nothing. What will the customers think of us. Besides, as long as the Germans are around, we are on good terms with them."

Yvette returned with a bowl of water and a cloth. Helga wetted the cloth and put the thing on Gruber's face.

"What did actually happen?" Yvette whispered to Edith. "The poison didn't work."

"Poison, what poison?" asked Crabtree behind them. Both women were shocked out of their skin, completely unnerved.

"The poison you brought to us this morning, you fool." Mimi quipped in. You were there when Michelle gave it to René yesterday."

"I can recall that moment. It was shortly before the two pilotes left here in disguise. I actually came to bring back this." Crabtree ducked his hand in his pocket and showed them a little bottle. "I think they were planning for a string dronk. (I think they were planning for a a strong drink)

Edith and Yvette stared at the little bottle. They both gasped

"It's the poison!" Edith said in a strong whisper.

"Is it truly?" Yvette asked on the same whispertone, but as exicted as Edith. "So the poisoned wine wasn't poisoned."

"And the Lieutenant wasn't poisoned as well."

"But then why is he on the floor, all unconscious?"

Edith frowned, then her face got an expression of understanding.

"Lieutenant Gruber is trying to seduce René by playing with his emotions. He knows that René could never stand someone hurting or ill. It's a mean trick."

Yvette her eyes widened, then they took a determined expression.

Unaware of all this, René still sat with Gruber. At some point, he had put his hand under the officer's neck and had lifted his head up a bit. He held the wet cloth in place while Helga checked for his pulse once again. She had done so three times in the past ten minutes.

To René's astonishment and big relief, after another 5 minutes - why had he been telling the minutes?! - Gruber opened his eyes. He rolled his head back and forth, his mouth moving as to speak. After a couple of attempts, Gruber got his eyes open enough to see apparently cause he asked: "Helga?" and fainted again.

Some of the younger officers around grinned.

"You stupid woman." René muttered and changed his sitting position a bit for he was getting a cramp.

"Let René handle it." The Colonel said, with a touch of impatience but also a playfull tone in his voice. "Or else the Lieutenant might think he landed in hell surrounded by women." A bout of laughter arose between the German male officers. René started to protest, not wanting to have to be the bait again but Helga silenced him when Gruber came round again.

Gruber spoke again, barely audible but panic plain in his voice. "René? René, is that you? is that your voice?"

René sighed heavily but he noticed something in the Lieutenant's voice that stopped him from saying something sharp and rejecting and instead replied: "Yes, Lieutenant, it's me."

"Where are you? I can't see you."

"I'm right here, lieutenant." René said, frowning at the fact the Lieutenant couldn't see him, or Helga for that matter, who was nearest, apart from himself.

Gruber took Helga's arm, feeling with his hands in the air af if he really couldn't see anything. Before he knew what he was doing, René sought Gruber's hand and took it with his own. Immediately he felt the other hand calm down.

"It's alright. I'm here. All will be well."

"But why is it I can't see you?" Grubers opened his eyes widely as if he wanted to show that he did his best to try to look but really just couldn't. He had beautifull eyes, René thought, even when they were now plastered with fear and tears.

Getting back a glimp of his normal attitude towards the Lieutenant, René answered in his usual hastingly-wanting-to-flee tone: "Because your body needs time to recover so you need to relax. Seeing me would make you too excited. You sleep now. You sleep for a long time and everything will be as it was when you wake up." Not surprisingly, Gruber obied easily to what René proposed and closed his eyes.

In a blur René lived to what happened next. The Colonel ordered him to get Gruber a room, for free since he had "poisoned" - the word made everyone else shudder - him with bad wine, and told him he wanted his lieutenant back tomorrow afternoon. With a short bark he got any German in the Café to stand up and to leave as quickly as they could reach the door. The treath about being hanged for murder, René didn't even completely get. When the Germans had left, Yvette and Edith finally found their chance to tell what they had found out. René was furious but relieved and Mimi even dared to say: "Well, there's one good thing to all off this."

René watched her and snapped: "And what should that be?"

"Lieutenant Gruber wont fancy you anymore after he is told by the Colonel you tried to poison him."

René turned to her sharply: "If Michelle ever comes with that kind of plans again, I bloody poison her myself."

René felt he could live up to that statement.

"Help me to get the Lieutenant somewhere more comfortable. And be carefull with him."

A bit reluctantly, Crabtree first reacted and after waking Gruber he helped René to get him up the stairs where René took the lieutenant and shooed everyone out of the little spare room except for Crabtree.

"Watch after him. Warn me if he needs something."

Crabtree nodded and was left by René who went back to the Café where things went on again as if nothing had happened. But for René, somehing hád happened. Somewhere nobody had seen it. Somewhere where he had never been liked to be but from now on wanted to be nowhere else.

 **(This might be continued if the response is good)**


End file.
